Trevor
by Nick Jones
directed by Monique Lacoste

March 14-March 31, 2019

Fame. Success. Lies. Oh, and an erratic, 200-pound chimpanzee. The Santa Fe Playhouse opens its 2019 season with Trevor. Inspired by true events, Trevor is the subversive comedy by Nick Jones that won the 2015 Los Angeles Drama Critic’s Circle Award for Writing.

At the center of this hilarious and heart-wrenching play are two individuals fighting against a world unable to understand their love: Trevor, a chimpanzee who once performed in commercials with the likes of Morgan Fairchild, and his owner Sandra, who swears he would never hurt a fly … at least not on purpose.

Vaughn Irving, Artistic Director of the Santa Fe Playhouse, felt Trevor—a moving exploration of family and flawed communication—was a natural choice for leading The Playhouse’s 2019 season; the season has the broad umbrella theme of HUMANITY.

Irving says, “Our 2019 conversation is about humanity: love, ambition, fear, irrelevance, power, alienation, communication. Trevor is an absurd comedy which begs the questions, ‘What does it mean to be human?’ and ‘Can we love something and still see the world for what it is?’ While not human himself, we can see in Trevor our own struggles and joys.”

Evan Dalzell plays Trevor. This is his inaugural casting as a simian. Dalzell observes,“This is my first time playing a chimpanzee, or any non-human for that matter. I’m excited to work on this character because, as well as being a very physical role which is always fun, it’s taking me outside my comfort zone. One of my biggest challenges was figuring out how to ignore some very human impulses that naturally come to you and instead trying to respond in a way that’s similar to how a chimp raised by humans might respond.”

“This fable, inspired by actual occurrences, is structurally ingenious, animal and human perspectives interweaving in ways that swerve from hilarious to heartbreaking to house-stilling.”–LA Times (Critic’s Pick)

“Sweet, clever and weirdly touching… Trevor‘s absurdist mixture of showbiz satire and real-life poignancy is so continually delightful, in fact, that you may not notice, as it flows by, how resonant the story actually is.”–Time Out New York (Critic’s Pick)

Honorable Mention, Best of New York 2013 (Time Out New York, Adam Feldman)